Samsung ranks 4th in global chip sales

Samsung Electronics maintained its fourth place standing in global chip sales while Hyundai Electronics Industries (HEI) jumped two notches to finish ninth, a U.S. marketing research company Dataquest said Tuesday.

According to a worldwide semiconductor market survey conducted by Dataquest, Samsung grossed US$10.8 billion in sales last year while HEI posted sales of US$6.88 billion.

Samsung, which rose from sixth place in 1998 to fourth place last year, recorded a relatively high growth rate of 51.6 percent in sales and consequently its market share expanded 0.5 percentage points from 4.4 percent in 1999 to 4.9 percent last year. HEI marked a sales growth of 42.6 percent last year from the previous year, taking up a market share of 3.1 percent.

Intel of the United States took the world`s top position with sales worth US$19.7 billion, to be followed by Toshiba with US$11.2 billion and NEC with US$11.0 billion, both from Japan.

Texas Instrument took the fifth place and Motorola the sixth. STM came in seventh, Hitachi eighth and Infineon 10th. Sony of Japan ranked 19th last year, up from the 22nd in 1998.

Meanwhile, the size of the global semiconductor market was found to have grown 31.3 percent from 1998 to be worth US$222 billion last year. Dataquest evaluated that the market condition is favorable although the growth rate slowed somewhat. By region, the Asia-Pacific market posted the highest growth rate of 34.9 percent, followed by Japan with 33.3 percent and America with 28.9 percent. The European market showed a growth rate of 28.6 percent.